One day you will acknowledge you carbon monoxide life,
your combustible partner, your smoldering tinderbox home.
You will welcome oxygen back into your lungs, your numb throat, your hope.
You will awaken from your zombie gaze, respond to innate clangs and alarms.
You will remember fire drills, the science lessons that water and electricity are enemies,
the years of duck and cover.
When their flames devour your air, you will pause and fuel yourself
with one last glance at disaster.
In the ice-pick stillness before the backdraft you will imagine your past in cinders. You will
open the door in a getaway blaze, singeing your hair and your one true vision.
You will chant as you run: It will grow back, it will grow back.
Joyce Hayden 1996
